Young Kids Watch More Than a Day of TV Every Week

Young Kids Watch More Than a Day of TV Every Week

Ugh!
Doing some simple math on these numbers shows that younger kids are
spending the equivalent of 2+ months a year watching television. We'll
see what impact this has in the coming years.

More
than an entire day -- that's how long children sit in front of the
television in an average week, according to new findings released
Monday by Nielsen.

The amount of television usage by children
reached an eight-year high, with kids ages 2 to 5 watching the screen
for more than 32 hours a week on average and those ages 6 to 11
watching more than 28 hours. The analysis, based on the fourth quarter
of 2008, measured children's consumption of live and recorded TV, as
well as VCR and game console usage.

"They're using all the
technology available in their households," said Patricia McDonough,
Nielsen's senior vice president of insights, analysis and policy.
"They're using the DVD, they're on the Internet. They're not giving up
any media -- they're just picking up more."

The increase in
consumption is in part the result of more programming targeted at kids,
she said, including video on demand, which is particularly popular
among young children who like to watch their favorite shows over and
over again.

"When I was a kid, I had Saturday morning cartoons,"
McDonough said. "And now there are programs they want to watch
available to them whenever they want to watch them."

"I think
parents are clueless about how much media their kids are using and what
they're watching," said Dr. Vic Strasburger, a professor of pediatrics
at the University of New Mexico School of Medicine and a spokesman for
the American Academy of Pediatrics.

"There are some
extraordinarily good media for kids," he said. "But even the best --
'Sesame Street' for 5-year-olds -- kids shouldn't be watching five
hours a day. They should be outside playing. They should be having
books read to them."